Graveyard of Honor

Anyone expecting "just another Miike flick" might get very disappointed, as I'd claim this remake, of Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 success, to differ quite much from Miike's other works. There's a lack of comic events here, while the amount of violence is steady and non-compromising straight throughout the movie. While Miike's other works may have a sort of balance between the cold terror of Yakuza violence and fun punchlines, dark and light or whatever you'd like, this piece is leaning way more to the darker side. No one gets away with anything, women and men, they're all facing their dramatic paths down the line.

As I've mentioned above, the piece feels quite different, and at the beginning I thought it may even be bad. However, such a case didn't await me and afterward I thought it was all good. Different, but good. I prefer the other works of Miike, but that didn't disqualify this one to be a good view. Shattering, touching and filled up with non-sympathy. 7/10.

If Japan is "perfect", how does "imperfection" look like? The protagonist in this movie embodies exactly that. Which takes away a lot of the "Scarface"-like thriller elements. There is a story about a guy stepping up in a mafia environment, but his stoic anti-will, the fact he hurts EVERYone - helpers, supporters, lovers and foes - is meant to be allegorically political.

It's stated somewhere and in fact, there's some few scenes that appear very illogical. Not so, if you watch the movies "the right way".

Movie is calm, depressing, melancholic, bloody painful, sometimes crazy (in one scene he shoots at everyone: police, bypassers etc., then going "SORRY, OUTTA AMMO!" and delivers himself).

Good, disturbing, mature Miike-movie. Not as cartoonish as most of his films.

A slow burning Miike movie interspersed with bouts of extreme and graphic violence that is toe-curling real. I found the story almost Shakespearian in its handling of the dishwashers "journey to hell" and the strong themes of honour and loyalty that run throughout. I find Miikes misogynistic treatment of women disturbing, but interesting. He seems to relish every kick and slap.. but then he relishes the violence wreaked on everyone. It just jars (my Western sensibility ?)so much to see Ishimatsu brutalise his "wife".

Look out for Miike as the assassin who Ishimatsu knocks out and thereby starts his self-destructing rampage ... and what a scene ! As good as the intro of "Dead or Alive"

I may try to find Kinji Fukasaku's 1975 original which was equally controversial on its release....

All I can say is move over Coppola and Scorsese.. here comes Miike..

Takashi Miike has a knack at Yakuza thrillers. Some might not be very good, some might be some odd sorts of deranged masterpieces. But with Graveyard of Honor, I can only imagine how fantastic the original Kinji Fukasaku film from the 70s was if this might possibly be Miike's best "serious" Yakuza movie. This is to say that Miike turns down a somewhat typical level of madcap gore and humor for an approach that is kind of staggering, as though Cassavetes had some input on the screenplay (or Abel Ferrara ala Bad Lieutenant for that matter). It's a solid piece of drama of a man, Rikuo Ishimatsu (in a performance that, within the range, is one of a lifetime from Gorô Kishitani ala young Mifune), who unwittingly becomes apart of a crime family after saving its boss while working as a dishwasher. He serves some time for attempting to kill another gangster, he gets out, the years pass and he gets bitter, and in a fit of panic he bites the hand that feeds him - he shoots his own boss.

From here on it's a path right to hell that Ishimatsu takes. Already one has seen him as a character with some demons he has trouble quelling. He's tough, maybe too tough, and doesn't have much of a sense of humor (which includes around his woman, a timid creature who soon gets into the dank mess that Ishimatsu puts himself into). He also turns into a full-fledged junkie, and burns more bridges than one could ever fathom. What Miike crafts here is something that might not be his most inventive work, but it displays him as someone who has the range to plunge into real bloodshed and tragedy. It's almost the reversal of the cartoonish mayhem of Ichi the Killer - where that you almost were given permission to chuckle at the carnage and excess of violence, in Graveyard of Honor it's grim, ugly, the blood flowing hard and with bodies writhing in total agony. It's a rare instance for the director to present things about as realistic as he'll get, in edgy hand-held and compositions.

But there is some style that Miike puts, appropriately and with an creative sensibility, on the material. The music crooning on and off is like that of New York jazz from the late 50s and early 60s, and I'm almost reminded of some lucid nightmare of a beatnik on junk ala William S. Burroughs and pulp fiction. As the downward spiral continues for this character, even if it starts to seem unlikely that it would go this far (the escape from prison alone, intense for the self-inflicted horror done to himself, is just enough to swallow), we go right down with this character in his oblivion. It's hard to turn away, and there are moments that are gruesome not so much for what's shown, which can be a lot, but the emotional impact. Not to sound pretentious, but I'm almost reminded of some damned Shakespearan king or something, only here it's a sensibility of total unadulterated nihilism that propels Ishimatsu to his horror of an end.

On the surface, it doesn't feel a whole lot different from other Miike Yakuza fare. Yet it's a little maturer, a little more tightly crafted and developed with the characters, and it has the mood of a filmmaker working outside of his reputation as a showman or provocateur. It's a real movie, one of the best in the Yakuza realm.

Gorô Kishitani plays Rikuo Ishimatsu a mid level Yakuza heavy in Takashi Miike's (sort of) remake of the classic 1970's movie.

It's a remake of an older movie but apart from a few similar scenes and some other call backs it's mostly it's own original thing.

It's a Miike movie through and through with everything you would expect - Extreme violence with buckets of blood, offbeat characters, dark humour and a cool mean streak throughout.

This is a pretty insane movie which features one of the most repugnant main characters in any movie ever.

Ishimatsu is a scumbag and the movie doesn't try to make you relate to him or make him sympathetic, you are just there to witness his horrific actions.

If you like Miike's other movies then this is a no brainer for fans and it's not exactly a laugh riot but it's intense as hell, stylish and disturbing.

If that's you're thing then check it out.